Posted on March 18, 2004 at 2:27 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The 2004 graduating class of the School of Medicine at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) will send nearly half of its graduates into one of the primary care specialties, according to numbers released at today’s Match Day. Run by the National Resident Matching Program, Match Day is when graduating seniors at medical schools nationwide find out where they will be doing their residency training and in what field.

Forty-six percent of the UAB graduates will conduct their residency training in one of the primary care fields: internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics or obstetrics/gynecology. “There is a great need for more primary care physicians in this country, particularly in the rural south and inner cities,” said Dr. Kathy Nelson, associate dean for students.

Twenty-five percent of UAB’s graduates will serve residencies in general surgery or a surgical sub-specialty. Nationally, the residencies with the largest increase from last year were surgery, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and psychiatry.

Seventy-six percent of the 2004 graduates will do their residency training in the Southeast, up slightly from 72 percent last year; 42 percent will remain in Alabama. Graduates will serve residencies in 69 different hospitals or medical centers in 30 different states from New England to the West Coast.

“Young physicians tend to establish their permanent practices in the same state or region where they received postgraduate training,” says Nelson. “More residents remaining in-state translates into better health care and better access to health care for all Alabamians.”

More than 25,000 fourth-year medical students across the country participated in today's Match Day, the largest total in the program’s 52-year existence.